I guess we are in for a full three years of anti-Scottish lies from the mainstream media. One of the most common unionist lies is that Spain would veto Scottish independence, as claimed in today’s Independent. This canard has been about for years and is assiduously spread by unioinists. I have discussed it in the past with senior Spanish diplomats, and they have been unanimous that it is impossible that Spain would seek to veto Scottish membership.
Firstly, nobody in the EU has ever left the EU voluntarily, let alone been expelled, and the idea that 5 million EU citizens in a stongly pro-EU country would be thrown out against their will is not in the realm of practical politics. The whole dynamic of the EU is expansive, with countries continually accepted into membership who technically should not be. Everybody knows, for example, that Romania and Bulgaria were not remotely close to compliance with the acquis communitaire when they were admitted. There is no appetite anywhere in the EU to argue that an EU member successor state would have to re-apply.
Secondly, Scots are much liked internationally. There is a strong popular understanding throughout Europe of Scottish desire for independence – bagpipes, Braveheart and a separate football team are an intrinsic part of this strong Scottish popular recognition. There are no votes in Europe in being beastly to the Scots, and that includes Spain. The Spanish government are not stupid. It would be very unpopular in Spain to act against the Scots, and would infuriate the Catalans and actually boost the independence movement there. Tactically, there are times when it is best to pretrend to be relaxed about self-determination, as Cameron is doing.
Thirdly, there is a real difference here with the Kossovans. Spain does not oppose Slovenia, Croatia or other parts of the former Yugoslavia from EU membership. It did not oppose the Czech Republic or Slovakia. Spain does not automatically argue against EU membership for splitting states – that is a lie spread by English unionists. Unlike Kossovo, the Scottish state is not inextricably linkes with organised crime, and is not outside the EU.
Finally, as an example of Unionist lies and tricks, read the Independent article very carefully. You will see that the anaonymous “source” of the claim that Spain will veto Scottish EU membership is not anything to do with the Spanish government, but a Whitehall official.
The actual headline of the article should be:
“Whitehall Official Lies that Spain Would Veto Scottish EU Membership”.
From a puff piece when Hague was leader. Nothing has changed.
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‘But most of the time he was left to get on with his own interests – toy soldiers were a particular favourite.’
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Just William Profile William Hague
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=307609
http://consortiumnews.com/2012/01/23/spanish-front-in-war-on-truth/
“Among the numerous wars that are perennially being waged worldwide is the one between truth-tellers and those who would suppress the truth. I have alluded to this war in prior analyses that took up the plight of such truth-tellers as Bradley Manning and Julian Assange.
Their crime is not, as is sometimes suggested, the speaking of truth to Power. As Noam Chomsky once suggested, Power already knows the truth, and doesn’t care about it. No, their crime is the speaking of truth to the rest of us. Disenchanting the public of official lies is what really rattles those in power.
Of course, it is quite possible that most of the public, in the U.S. and elsewhere, doesn’t care about the truth either. However, Power is not taking any chances in this regard.
Recently, a new front in this continuing war has opened up. On Jan. 17, Al Jazeera reported that Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon had “gone on trial in the country’s supreme court on [three separate] charges of abusing judicial powers.”
Garzon is a very important truth-teller, who has conducted a number of investigations into violations of international law against torture. Using the principle of universal jurisdiction, Garzon went after Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet back in 1998, and in March of 2009 he stated that Spain could bring charges against six Bush Jr. administration officials for clearing the way for the use of torture during the Iraq War.
At least four men, who are Spanish citizens and also former prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay prison, have accused the U.S. military of torturing them. It was at this point that the U.S. government appears to have placed Garzon in a category that would also include Manning and Assange: the category of the dangerous truth-teller.”
MJ: EFTA and a finance system based on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VNcnxj2Dr8
“Among the numerous wars that are perennially being waged worldwide is the one between truth-tellers and those who would suppress the truth.” This is the terrible fact – we see it everywhere and it must not be lost by the truth-tellers. That is why people like Craig are so important and must not be silenced.
Said John Stack:
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> If you are not a true Scot…
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Heh, isn’t there a fallacy of that name? 😉
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Said Daniel:
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> It seems to me that Scottish nationalists are no different from their English
> counterparts in that both essentially appear to adhere to a petty nationalist mindset.
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I’d have to disagree with you there. As I said on another thread, Scottish nationalism seems quite reasonable – to make government in Scotland more local. It seems fair enough to me that (some) Scots are frustrated by being run by a government in London. Meanwhile English nationalists aren’t concerned much by decentralisation – their agenda is much more aggressive, based on racial identity, immigration and discrimination.
Havantaclu. Agree totally.
Azra, thanks so much for your sanguine reality checks and personal reminders that Iranians are human beings. I fear – after a decade of threats – that an all-out attack really is being brewed this time. EU sanctions against Iran’s major export when the EU is their second-largest export market for that product is tantamount to declaration of war. It is of course precisely what the USA/EU/NATO want: War, the destrution of an enormous country and one of the oldest civilisations in the world. Rage is an understatement.
Mary,
Did you see Billy fourteen pints, playing to the gallery and sounding oh so regal holding the line on Iranian civilian nuclear program?
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Did the trick though; kept the welfare cuts and no cuts for fat cats, the inequity is going unnoticed by he vast majority.
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem….
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Israel arrests two Hamas MPs at Red Cross compound
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16686020
Suhyal, It will be madness to attack Iran, it will only make the current regime stronger, and will not achieve anything at all. If the problem is nuclear activity, they are so widely spread across the country and deep under-ground that an air attack will be ineffective and if they mean an all out attack, well compare the military might of Iran to that of Iraq, and yet Iraq was not a success story, was it?
I have started to believe it is all about petrodollar and the fact that Iran has started to ask for payment in other currencies and gold. Does it remind you of Saadam and Gaddafi?
I am not changing my plans to be in Iran for the Persian New year (20th March), will see what will unfold by then!
The phrase, “a true Scot”, brings to mind a rather silly campaign run by The Daily Record some 20 years ago when they churned out car stickers entitled, ‘I’m a Real Scot from… Paislel/Dundee/wherever’. I’m not deingrating genuine, progressive Scottish nationalism, btw, not at all, I agree with Jon that it is a different entity from most prevalent English nationalism. So long as “a true Scot” refers to committment, action and feeling and so on and not ‘blood and soil’ or some kind of ‘cricket test’ (?football test), then maybe it’s just a form of shorthand. But I am uneasy with the term. Just ‘a Scot’ is fine by me. The use of the term, ‘true Scot’ infers that there are also ‘false Scots’ and also iners that someone, somewhere would have to make a decision about who is which.
According to SIPRI Yearbook, in 2002 Iran was responsible for 2.2% of world military spending. To put that in context, India spent 1.6%, Israel 1.3%, Italy 2.7%, UK 4.6%, Spain 0.9%, Canada 1.1%, US 42.6%. Libya and Iraq don’t even show. Iran would be a very hard target.
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Azra wrote: “yet Iraq was not a success story, was it?”. Hmmm, well, various commercial concerns did, and are doing, very well out of it.
Professor Christopher Harvie, an historian by profession, who was an SNP MSP, for example, has a deeply progressive vision, in my view.
Wrt Iran, Clark, you see, I don’t believe they are interested, really, in simply ‘hitting’ military targets, because as with Iraq in 2002/3, the WMD thing is just a pretext. What they want is to destroy an independent state and subjgate it to their will. All they need to achieve that is chaos.
Clark, “Hmmm, well, various commercial concerns did, and are doing, very well out of it”, and top of the list is Iran! they are doing very well out of Iraq, better than any of American or British companies!plus imagine that their enemy is now their bosom friend!
Different figures here Clark for 2010.
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Israel shown at No 18 as spending $13 billion (and we know whose money that is) which is 6.3% of GDP.
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Iran shown at No 25 as spending $7.6 billion which is 1.8% of GDP.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
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PS Grotesque to see America’s expenditure at $687 billion and the UK’s at $57.5 billion
I forgot to provide a web-link for Chris Harvie:
http://www.chrisharvie.co.uk/
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Wrt ‘Iran-in-Iraq’, very interesting, Azra.
And as though on cue, to provide an apt illustration of the muplicity of possible ‘Scottishness’, here is a review by yours truly, published in yesterday’s Scotland-on-Sunday (The Scotsman’s Sunday imprint) of a new novel, entitled, ‘Bombay Baby’ by Indian Scot, Leela Soma. The story takes in – among other themes – the ‘Anglo’-Indian community in India, which actually is often ‘Scoto-Indian’!
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http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/books/book-reviews/book_review_bombay_baby_1_2071469
agreed Suhayl,
it is all about destabilisation. They cannot afford to have an Independent nation spoiling whatever plans they have for global domination.They’ll shock and awe them if necessary,but I think they’ll get a fright.
The 5th fleet is just across the gulf and an awfully big target and then there are all those big shiny boats from all nations with no place to hide.
But what really gets my goat is that its all about nukes supposedly and Israel has hundreds of them.Iran is being punished for something that might happen one day in the future.. a thought crime,but Israel has them. And nothing is said from the IAEA. Not that it would help,but it might make things look fair.
If Israel are first to pull the trigger,and historically they always are,then they probably will end up being victims for once.
‘multiplicity’. I obviously cannot spell.
Azra,
You are using the vile and pernicious vocabulary concerning Iran, too, which is an indication of the success of the propagandists in their mission to demonoise Iran.
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Regime change, why is this vile phrase used?
A regime is portrayed to be as something illegitimate, unwholesome, bad, and evil. Therefore any change in the said regime would be for the better.
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This then elegantly follows a self awarded “permission” to wage war upon Iran, with an “altruistic” aim to “free the poor, down trodden Iranians”.
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Petrodollars, an innocuous label, promoted as a pejorative for US dollars paid in lieu of oil. However the pernicious term of recirculation added in fact hides a multitudes of wrong doing, and evil. The simple fact that US is printing money without any collateral or security, fully in cognisance of the fact that world over will be using the printed fiat money, that is as good as bits of toilet paper, to complete their transactions, leaving US free to commit astronomical sums of easy money into her murder technologies, that is further looked upon as an enforcer for the evidently mandated currency for the world over.
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Throughout the twentieth century, based on a pack of agreed upon shameless lies we know as “History”; aspirations of independence and self rule of the various groups and peoples of the world have been thwarted all in the way of protection of the national security of US. The mountainous heaps of the skulls of the victims of the national security of US in fact tell a story of rampaging Oligarchs and their hand picked toadies intent on coercing the population of the planet to toe the line and follow their leader (US), dealing in Dollars, buying useless bit of military hardware, drinking Pepsi, eating big macs, wearing jeans, farming genetically modified crop seeds, watching Hollywood brain farts, and wishing to sleep with the standard issue California girl, ad nauseum.
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In contrast Iranians have been tacking an independent course, that has resulted in the progress of sciences, and industry in Iran. In fact if the thirty years old sanctions regime illegally imposed by the US et al were not in place Iran would have been in far more dominant economical position. However the active discouragement of any kind of competition to challenge the status quo, has meant in the none free market conditions Iranians have managed through sheer determination pure genius and dogged hard work to develop their industry to its current extent.
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Just looking at Iran’s neighbours, during the same era, these to date cannot manufacture a nail, or sewing needle, suffering enormous economic hardships ( thirty percent of Saudi people live in abject poverty), shrinking populations, and reduced to becoming the play ground for the rich and famous, as in the old pre revolutionary Cuba, etc see Dubai and Qatar.
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Iran can look after herself, and those wishful thinkers, subscribing to any other notions, ought ot remember the stealth drone RQ-170 Sentinel capture, from a nation that has only been building her industry for the last twenty years, given the imposed Iraq war that pretty well destroyed almost most of the infrastructure in Iran.
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Azra the simple fact overlooked is; World needs more Irans, if only for ensuring the survival of humanity itself, Iran is breaking the mould in a standard world that is the result of the unimaginative, weak and ideologically and morally corrupt regimes in US, et al.
“PS Grotesque to see America’s expenditure at $687 billion and the UK’s at $57.5 billion”
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Even more “Grotesque” when you take into account that they have/are taken so much from the disabled, sick and the millions they have made unemployed to pay for all these weapons of mass destruction in order to wage wars on other nations, kill millions of innocent civilians and steal their resources.
DRESSING UP IN THE CLOTHES OF LIBERTY?
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BICOMOFCOM.
Office of Communications Act [2002 amended] – Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same.
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OFCOM shall not have any power, for the purposes of or in connection with their function under this section, to borrow money from any person other than the Secretary of State.
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PressTV
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“I sat in the British parliament for almost 25 years – and sat in the Parliament when OFCOM was created and of course none of this overtly political censorship was in the Parliament’s mind when these proposals were laid before them.
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This is not about media regulation , after all, not only has your correspondent said, all sorts of foreign based television channels modeled exactly along the same lines as PressTV , still broadcasting on the Sky platform, but you have the most disgusting, most obscene sex channels by the dozen, operating under OFCOM’s nose and of course they,re free to do so.
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Our crime at PressTV was, not only that we were telling the truth that some, indeed most other broadcasters were deliberately concealing, but we were becoming more and more popular, which is why you are right in showing the many different ways that will be possible to see PressTV in the UK because we have built an audience for the station very quickly and very widely over the last couple of years, precisely because of the shortcomings of other channels.
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I’ve been saying all along that this is a blow of course to PressTV media, it means some of our viewers will find it more difficult to watch us, but it is much more of a blow to the British government’s hypocritical stance of being in favour of freedom of expression, freedom of speech, indeed we are often told here in Britain that we must actually go to war in other people’s countries to bring such freedoms to bear , or we are told we must sanction countries in order to help bring such freedoms to them.
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Well now the whole world can see that flag [Union Jack] you are showing on the screen now, is a flag of hypocrisy not democracy.
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George Galloway – January 22nd 2012
Anti-Scottishism now joins anti-Semitism as another bogus claim of oppression by racist nationalists on the make.
Fedup : well said, you are right in all accounts!
I agree with you Guest. Thanks Mark for the GG quote. He is spot on as usual.
If and when this refinery goes out of production, there will be a panic in the SE with queues at filling stations and the usual media hysteria.
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Petroplus share trading suspended on Swiss exchange
Oil refined at Coryton is mainly distributed throughout the southeast of England
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MEP warns 1,000 oil jobs at risk
Oil refiner in bank credit freeze
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Trading in Petroplus, the owner of the Coryton oil refinery in Essex, was suspended on the Swiss SIX stock exchange on Monday.
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The company operates the Coryton oil refinery in Essex which employs 1,000 people whose jobs may be affected.
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The stock exchange said that the suspension came at the request of the company.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16691843
““PS Grotesque to see America’s expenditure at $687 billion and the UK’s at $57.5 billion”
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“Even more “Grotesque” when you take into account that they have/are taken so much from the disabled, sick and the millions they have made unemployed to pay for all these weapons of mass destruction in order to wage wars on other nations, kill millions of innocent civilians and steal their resources.”
(adopting the tone of the avg commentator here)
Could you be any more ignorant in your narrow worldview? Do a quick math check on the expenditures per capita, then ask yourself;
Who’s been carrying your load?
Mary, to clarify, the percentages I quoted are for proportion of total military spending worldwide, as opposed to percentage of that country’s GDP.
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Ben Franklin, I thought that about half of the US deficit was spent on Bush’s wars? What “load” are you referring to?
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Azra, thanks, I didn’t know that. Do you have a link please?
Who’s been carrying your load?
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Were there any referendums, ballets, votes taken, or did US just decide to appoint itself as the “load carrier”?
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Kindly piss off and stop carrying our loads, BTW you are welcome to take the leadership echelon along with the self anointed chosen ones too, and leave us all to our dark and dreary and insecure futures. Now git.
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Can’t believe the temerity of the gobshite.